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Ofcom is investigating BT and Three over mobile outages it said had caused “UK-wide disruption”, including to emergency services.<\/p>\n
Thousands of Three customers reported they were unable to make calls in June<\/a>, while BT and EE customers were hit by a similar outage in July<\/a>. <\/p>\n The regulator said it would examine whether the mobile networks did not do enough to prevent the problems.<\/p>\n Three has not yet responded to a request for comment – but a BT Group spokesperson apologised to customers who had been affected.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n “We will co-operate fully with Ofcom throughout the investigation and apologise again for any issues caused by this incident,” they said.<\/p>\n According to Ofcom, firms must take proper action to identify risks and prepare for “anything that compromises the availability, performance or functionality of their network or service”.<\/p>\n It said providers must also prevent “adverse effects arising from any such compromises” – saying where this happens, they must take steps to mitigate them.<\/p>\n The incidents at the heart of its investigation saw thousands across BT and Three networks report problems with their mobile service.<\/p>\n At the time, Three told customers complaining of issues making and receiving calls on 25 June it was experiencing “an issue affecting voice services”.<\/p>\n This was not isolated to its own network – it also caused problems for customers on networks that piggyback off of Three, such as ID Mobile.<\/p>\n A month later, EE and BT customers complained of similar issues.<\/p>\n A government spokesperson said at the time “communications providers have statutory obligations to ensure their networks and services are appropriately resilient”.<\/p>\n Operators have previously faced scrutiny over outages or issues affecting peoples’ ability to make calls or contact emergency services. <\/p>\n